Like Father, Like Husband

Cindy McCain has usually referred to herself as an only child. As it turns out, she has a half-sister, who isn’t too pleased about that. An NPR story last week described Mrs. McCain as the only child of Jim Hensley. But Kathleen Hensley Portalski is also his daughter, and she says she feels like a non-person because the media continues to repeat that Cindy is an only child.

Turns out that Jim Hensley came back injured from Word War II, and met another woman while still married to his first wife, the mother of Kathleen. He divorced his first wife, and had Cindy with his second wife, the woman with whom he had an affair. This sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

When Hensley died in 2000, his will named not only Portalski but also a daughter of his wife Marguerite from her earlier marriage. So, Cindy McCain may be the only product of Jim and Marguerite’s marriage, but she is not the only child of either.

She was, however, the sole inheritor of his considerable estate.

Kathleen Portalski was left $10,000, and her children were left nothing. It’s a fact Nicholas Portalski says his sister discovered the hard way.

“What she found in town – on the day of or the day before or the day after his funeral – was that the credit card didn’t work anymore,” Nick says.

And here’s what really bothers Kathleen:

“The fact that we don’t exist,” he says. “The fact that we’ve never been recognized, and then Cindy has to put such a fine point on it by saying something that’s not true. Recently, again and again. It’s just very, very hurtful.”